Sibling Love, Part III

I think there are advantages and disadvantages to having your children close together, and to having them far apart. Luckily we've gotten to experience both situations, with Maggie and Finn 3 1/2 years apart, and Finn and Carolina 17 months apart. My friend Rachel commented recently that she thinks that most of the disadvantages to having kids close together are experienced in the first year or so, and I'd have to agree. It certainly was often hectic basically having two babies at a time (I know, I'm sure twins are harder but 17 months apart is pretty darn close!).
I often feel that if I wrote down my tasks for the two of them for the day it would look something like this: prepare food for and feed Finn and Carolina, wipe off faces, sweep giant mess off floor, change two dirty diapers, chase two busy little ones around, and then repeat two more times! BUT...they love to play together, they are cuddly and sweet most of the time, and they have so much in common (books, songs, toys, etc.).
Finn has a million nicknames for Carolina (and so do we!). He calls her Liney, Lina, Caro, Kay-Kay, and then Caro-LINE when he's being bossy. She calls him Finn (duh), brudder, and buddy.
Apparently having two children under two is called "Baby Bunching" and there is even a blog dedicated to baby bunching. I actually read a lot of this blog when Carolina was a newborn because there were so many new challenges for me. Because of the age difference between Finn and Maggie, by the time Finn was born, things were pretty easy. Maggie was old enough to walk next to me at the grocery, so Finn went in the cart. Problem solved. But what do you do when you have one baby not sitting up and one toddler who will run away from you while you grab some carrots? Both kids need to be in the shopping cart, but with two kids in a shopping cart, there's not room for the food! I would often carry Carolina in the sling and put Finn in the cart, but then she got big enough to grab things off the shelves, like that time when she grabbed, then dropped a large, glass bottle of Blood Orangeade. I was bleeding, there was a huge mess, and I couldn't do anything because I was wearing Carolina! It was mortifying. Anyway, it has been a big adjustment but I have grown to love the age difference between Finn and Carolina. Here they are in an awesome two-seater cart from Costco. Finn had just taken his hat off, hence the awesome 'do. I call him Crazy Hair McGee in moments like this.